BarkingProse

I gotta get this bark out before I fall asleep. We had a dog party today and things got pretty wild. My pals River and Wind came and they brought River’s mother! Her name is Sima. My little Corgi pal Pippen came too.

We ran and played and barked and had a grand old time. Wind made a pass at Tess, River chewed mom’s hair and Jack minded his own business.

I’m not sure what happened next. Mom said the devil got ahold of me. I started acting goofy and wouldn’t shut up. I kept barking and barking and acting like I had no manners.

Everybody tried to get me to calm down, but I just felt out of sorts. Mom played long ball with me and gave me special attention, but it didn’t help.

Finally mom decided I was too tired or too excited or too something. She put my training collar on me and held me close to her on the leash. Somehow that made me feel better. Maybe it’s because I didn’t have to think about what to do. I could only stand close to mom and follow where she went.

Mom gave the leash to dad and told him to be real gentle with me because I was having a hard time. It was nice. Nobody got mad at me. They were just worried because I was acting strange. As soon as everybody left I fell asleep and didn’t wake up until it was time to post my bark.

I feel better now. Everyone was kind to me even though I was a jerk. I’m sorry for my bad behavior. I guess we all have bad days. Maybe the next time you see somebody having a bad day you can cut them some slack. Maybe they don’t mean to be that way. Maybe they just got a little crazy and can’t help themselves.

I’m gonna take a long nap. I’m gonna ask my mom to rub my toes and tell me how much she loves me. I’m gonna fall asleep with my head on her shoulder. I’m gonna dream about playing with my friends. Gotta go now.

It’s that time of year when we all have to give mom our poop. She collects it in little jars and puts our name on the jar. She makes it sound real fancy by saying she’s collecting a fecal sample. We all know it’s just a jar of poop.

She takes our poop to Dr. Brad to see if we have any hitchhikers in our bellies. Two years ago Codie and I got sick with giardia. We went to the emergency vet and both got IV fluids. Codie had to stay overnight because she was real weak.

Tess and I have been clean for the last year but this year Jack has little one cell critters swimming in his gut. Dr. Brad said Jack has coccidia. We didn’t know because Jack seems just fine and doesn’t have any symptoms.

Since Jack has a dry eye condition he can’t take the usual medicine to kill the coccidia. Dr. Brad knew of some medicine that will kill the bugs but not hurt Jack’s eyes. He had to order it from a compounding pharmacy in Arizona. I don’t remember the name but we’ll get it next week so I can bark about it then.

Here’s the funny thing. Dr. Brad told mom that Jack had caecal worms in his gut. They come from chickens and it proves that Jack has a taste for chicken poop. Dr. Brad said it’s no big deal for Jack because the worms don’t live in dogs, but it means our chickens have worms.

In case you haven’t guessed, this means lots of work for mom and dad. The chickens have to be wormed, Jack has to be treated, then Jack has to poop in the bottle again. Finally Tess and I have to give mom another poop sample to prove we didn’t get anything from Jack. If everything works out right all the worms and one cell critters will be long gone. Fun, huh. Glad all I have to do is keep on pooping. Gotta run!

Betcha thought I wasn’t going to get my bark done today. I know it’s late in the day, but it took me this long to decide what to bark about.

It was a toss up between chicken stories and us dogs getting mad about mom and her motorcycle.

I’ll get to the chickens on another day. But since mom rode off and left us barking, Tess and Jack wanted me to tell everyone how left out we felt.

Mom has loved motorcycles since she was little. She got her first motorcycle when she was done with college. She bought it from some guy and then had to call her friend to ride it home for her because she didn’t know how to drive it.

Over the years mom rode lots of motorcycles. Her favorite is her old BMW she’s had for thirty years. She says it’s as smooth as a sewing machine when it’s tuned up right.

Most of the time mom drives the car so she can take us with her. But today she said the sunlight was perfect for an afternoon ride. So she asked dad to watch us and off she went by herself on her motorcycle.

Us dogs were awful mad that she would leave us. We carried on something terrible. Tess barked, Jack wailed and I howled. Mom looked at us in disbelief and then started laughing. She said if we kept it up she might not come home in time for our dinner. That really got to us so we complained even louder.

Mom came home about two hours later. None of us told her that as soon as she was out of sight we went and took a nice nap. We wanted her to feel guilty so she wouldn’t leave us again, but dad ratted us out. I hope it snows soon so mom can’t ride her motorcycle. Either that or she’ll have to get a sidecar and take us with her.

Anyway, we were plenty mad and we want everyone to know how badly we were treated. She better stay home with us tomorrow!